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The activities, described in the present paper, have been conducted in the framework of the HYPROB Program, carried out by the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA) under contract by the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR). The Program has the main objective to enable and improve National system and technology capabilities in the field of liquid rocket engines (LRE) for future Space Propulsion Systems and applications, with specific regard to LOX/LCH4 technology. Moreover, the Program is in coherence with the long-term vision, provided by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) on Space Propulsion. According to the last implementation of the program, a system line, named \"HYPROB-DIMOSTRATORI\", has been included: it aims at designing, manufacturing and testing LRE demonstrators, LRE and HRE breadboards. The main objective of this line is to design, manufacture and test a regeneratively cooled LOX/LCH4 demonstrator, a pressure-fed thrust chamber assembly (TCA), aiming at validating critical design and technology features and then assessing the technology readiness level of potential solutions for future engines. The present paper illustrates the advancements in the development of the demonstrator. In particular, the cold and hot testing activities for the design validation of the injector head will be presented. Moreover, technological and manufacturing issues for the combustion chamber manufacturing will be exposed by giving details about the experimental activities recently performed. |
